Silver Rain (4 page)

“Shall I brew up a cuppa?” asked Elsie.

“Makes no never mind to me,” said Nan. “This floor needs a sweep though.”

There was nothing wrong with the floor that Elsie could see. But after she'd put the kettle on to boil, she took the broom from its hook on the back of the door and gave the worn linoleum a lick and a promise.

As she turned to hang the broom back up, she saw a penny peeking out from underneath Father's chair. She picked it up and quickly tucked it in her pocket. If Nan saw it, she'd make her put it in the jar on the dresser.

A penny wouldn't go far. It wouldn't make up for what Uncle Dannell had lost with his pay-packet raffle. But with only nine cents to go, Elsie might soon have enough to get into the dance marathon. She knew better than to ask anyone for money now. Perfect marks on the spelling test, or not.

Uncle Dannell finally came home, just in time for supper. He'd found a
Columbian
newspaper on the street. Elsie could tell someone else had already read it. The front cover had been torn off, and a big black footprint covered the back page. It didn't look any different than the
Vancouver Sun
, Elsie thought. But Scoop turned up his nose at the
Columbian
when he passed the vendor on the street. His dad had worked for the
Sun
, which Scoop said always had much more exciting news.

Dannell spread the newspaper across the table and carefully read all the want ads, muttering under his breath, but not really directing his words to anyone in the room. Elsie saw him circle something with a nub of pencil. But before she had a chance to ask what it was, he ripped the page out, tucked it in his back pocket, and slipped the rest of the paper into his coat hanging on the door. It was probably a job ad, thought Elsie. Her uncle would soon get more work to make up the money he'd lost, and then maybe Nan would let him
—
and Dog Bob
—
stay.

At supper, even though Nan gave Uncle Dannell the smallest serving, he didn't say a word. He wouldn't even look at her. Everyone ate without speaking.

Elsie did the dishes in the yellow enamel pan on the table, then sat down to finish her math homework. Once she'd got through the fractions Miss Beeston had set, she made a few calculations of her own on the back of her school scribbler.

There had been four of them when they first moved into the garage: Father, Mother, Nan and Elsie. Then Father disappeared. Leaving three. With one-quarter of the family missing, three-quarters were left.

Then Uncle Dannell came to stay. Four plus one equals five. Or would have been five if Father had still been there. So five people in the family minus Father was one-fifth missing.

So now there were four-fifths of the family living in the garage.

Elsie scratched her nose with the end of the pencil. It didn't make sense. Four-fifths was more than three-quarters. There was more of the family left now than when Father was there. But it felt like less.

Stupid math!

Elsie bit down hard on her lip so she wouldn't cry. She licked the tip of her pencil like Scoop did whenever he was getting ready to make some important notes. She tried a whole bunch of other calculations, but the numbers came out wrong every time. With people coming and going, there would never be enough left to make a whole family. What good were fractions?

Elsie dug an eraser out of the drawer and scrubbed at the paper so hard she almost rubbed right through. She tore out the page and threw it into the pail by the door. And she didn't mention the family fractions when Mother checked her homework.

Maybe if Scoop wrote it all down in his notebook, as if it was one of his mysteries that needed solving, maybe he could make some sense of it.

To make herself feel better, Elsie took Mother's copy of
A Child's Garden of Verses
down from the shelf. The cover was stained and frayed in one corner, and the pages were soft as washed cotton from having been turned so often. Father used to read the poems at bedtime when she was little. Just before he tucked her in and kissed her good night.

The only sound in the room was Elsie flipping the pages, until Dannell said, “Fancy a walk around the block a time or two, Peg? I, for one, find it a bit close in here.”

“I could use a bit of air,” said Elsie's mother.

“Can I come?” Elsie closed the book.

“This is grown-up time, kiddo.” Her uncle put on his jacket and tucked his newspaper under his arm. “Keep your nan company. We'll have us a round or two of cribbage when we get back. Ready, Peg?”

“Can I look at your jewelry box?” Elsie asked her mother. It was kept in an old nubby brown suitcase under the bed with Elsie's baby mug and her mother's scrapbook.

“Just make sure everything goes back in,” said her mother. “And put that book away carefully. Your nan and grandpa gave me that when I was younger than you are now.”

“You've told me that a million times,” muttered Elsie, ignoring the look her grandmother gave her as they watched Mother tie her cardigan around her shoulders and change into her street shoes. The heels were all worn down; one sole flapped loose as she walked. “We won't be long,” Mother said.

Dog Bob followed her mother and uncle out of the garage, wagging his tail madly.

Nan kept on knitting in Father's chair. She didn't look up or say a word as Mother and Uncle Dannell left the house.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

A
s soon as the door closed, Nan set her tangle of wool and needles on the arm of the chair. She rubbed her crooked fingers and watched Elsie dump the contents of her mother's jewelry box onto the table. “Less and less in that thing all the time,” Nan said. “Not much left to hock.”

Elsie scrabbled through the old buckles and buttons. She studied Father's Tarzan candy cards and fingered the three old pennies Nan had brought with her from England, one so worn that it was hard to make out the face on the coin. She unfolded the tissue paper that held all her baby teeth. Even tooth fairies were out of work in the Depression, Uncle Dannell had said.

Elsie tucked the teeth back in the paper and took out Mother's mauve enameled flower brooch. She pinned it to her shirt collar, ducking her chin so she could see it.

“It's a crime, that,” said Nan, her knitting needles clicking again.

“What is?” asked Elsie.

“Your father a jeweler. And that the only pretty thing your mother still has.”

Elsie unpinned the brooch. “Is it valuable?”

“Some things are worth more than money can buy,” said Nan. She held the needle of knitting in front of her and counted the rows with one finger.

How could something be worth more than money could buy? Elsie wondered as she polished the brooch with her mother's apron and put it back in the box. She arranged the Tarzan cards with her favorites on top and went through the buttons one by one, trying to remember which clothes they had come from. For a moment, she considered taking the English pennies to Mr. Archer at the bank. Maybe she could exchange them for enough Canadian money to get into the dance marathon. But when she imagined Father's voice saying
If you have to steal, it's not worth having
, she put them away.

Her uncle and mother came home just as she was locking the box again. Uncle Dannell helped Mother out of her cardigan. “Shall I brew up?” he asked.

Nan looked at him sharply. It was very unusual for him to make the tea. “Don't mind if you do,” she said. “Where have you been?”

“There and back to see how far it is,” he said. He winked at Elsie.

Nan harrumphed and frowned up at Mother, who looked away as Nan returned to her knitting. The sweater was the color of mud; Elsie would have preferred moss green. But another thing Nan often said was
We can make do by making do
. This didn't make any sense either, if you listened to it too closely. But Elsie knew what it meant. They all made do by making do these days.

“Everything back in one piece?” Mother reached across the table for the box. Elsie felt herself blushing. She nodded, feeling guilty about even thinking of stealing the money. She fetched the cribbage board from the cabinet next to Father's chair and opened the box of playing cards. They were soft with age. She rubbed her thumb against the little cigarette burn on the blue and white box, remembering how often she'd played with her father.

Where was he? Would he ever come home? How could her family fractions ever work out if he didn't?

The day Father left, he had gone out to apply for Relief. He'd done it before, but each time he had never got far. Once he got there too late, after he stopped in to visit a friend. Another time he got held up helping the coalman haul sacks off his wagon.

Mother had yelled at Father the time he said he'd run into the Reverend Hampton, who'd treated him to “tea and sympathy” at Melvin's, and got to the Relief Office too late again. That night she went to bed before supper and cried all night. Next day she hadn't said a word to Father or anyone else. Elsie thought that was the worst time of her life. Until the next day, when her father left home and didn't come back.

Nan and Mother had looked everywhere. They asked everyone they knew and inquired in the shops they regularly used. Nan even walked to the hospital and then made a nuisance of herself at the police station.

Mother had stayed in bed for four days when it looked as if Father had gone for good. Lots of men these days abandoned their families when times got tough. As if things would be easier without them. And she didn't get up again, except to go to the outhouse, until Mrs. Tipson asked her to come over to the house to bake a cake for Mr. Tipson's birthday. (Mother's baking was famous in the days the church ladies got together to talk about their charity work. But she didn't bake for her own family anymore, without an oven in the garage and no money for the ingredients.)

When she had come home that afternoon, Mother brought a little fairy cake for Elsie, cutting off the top and making it into two little wings that she'd stuck onto the cake with pink icing. How long would it be before there was cake again for tea in this house? Elsie's mouth watered just thinking about it.

Uncle Dannell crumbled stale bread for Dog Bob's supper as he waited for the kettle to boil. Elsie spread the cards out in a fan across her fingers, but her hand wasn't wide enough, and they scattered on the table.

“Budge over.” Uncle Dannell put the Brown Betty teapot, four cups and saucers, and the cracked yellow sugar bowl on the table.

“It's too late for that child to be drinking tea,” said Nan.

Uncle Dannell ignored her, pushing a cup toward Elsie, who could hear Nan tut-tutting behind her. “Once won't hurt,” said Uncle Dannell. He winked at Elsie again.

What scheme was he cooking up this time? Her uncle always looked like this when he was planning something, Elsie knew. And his grand schemes often blew up in his face. Like that daft raffle idea.

Elsie looked at her mother. She seemed, if not happy, at least calm, as she poured her own tea. What
had
they talked about on their walk?

Between hands of cribbage, Elsie watched Nan pour her tea into her saucer to cool, then slurp it up from there. She could just about stand it when her grandmother did this at home. But if she did it when they were out or had company, Elsie wanted to curl up into a little ball and hide under the table. Mother had explained it was an old English country habit, and she'd laughed when Elsie said that Nan wasn't English anymore. Even if she was old.

Elsie couldn't remember the last time Mother had laughed. But she was smiling now.

Elsie had a pair of sixes, a jack of spades, a ten of clubs, a seven of diamonds and a four of hearts. Not a very good hand. But it didn't matter if she lost or won. She loved the slow march of matchsticks around the cribbage board, the scoring fifteen-two, fifteen-four and one for his nibs. Her family never let her win the same way some grown-ups did when they played with kids. Father often said that learning to be a good loser was part of growing up.

“Have we got an Eaton's catalog?” Elsie asked as she put the game back in the cabinet.

“Planning your Christmas list?” The matchstick between Uncle Dannell's teeth bobbed up and down as he spoke.

“Miss Beeston wants us to bring them to school tomorrow,” said Elsie. “Don't know why.”

“It's underneath the bed,” said Mother.

“You're welcome to it,” said Nan. “Nothing there we can afford. And we've got enough newspaper for now.” To save money, scrap paper hung from a hook next to the toilet in the outhouse. Which reminded Elsie that she should go before she got ready for bed. She didn't like ducking out around the corner and along the gravel path when she was in her pajamas.

As she sat in the smelly dark outhouse, with cobwebs dangling from the ceiling and little skitterings in the wall, Elsie thought about how everything kept changing. The Depression was bad enough. Father running off was worse. Now it looked like her uncle was working on another scheme. They always got him into trouble.